Path 2

Path 2

MELVINS WEAR BOOTS

August 12, 2008

The Melvins have pretty much used the press build-up surrounding their new Nude With Boots to complain bitterly about being taken for granted, which they most certainly are. Survivors of hype cycles that date back to their days as the proto-Nirvana, the Melvins are used to a certain type of slight: As Buzz Osborne told Paper Thin Walls: “We’re yesterday’s news, we’re not quite a novelty act, and we have a Peter Pan complex. If Nude With Boots was a brand-new record from a brand-new band, people would think it’s amazing.” True enough—the record stomps, hard. One relatively brand-new band upstaging the Melvins is Big Business, who open here, and who flip their elder’s punishing bass-and-drums template into something more dynamic and less punishingly abrasive. Their homage, however, remains convincing to the people who count: Since 2006, Big Business have moonlighted as actual auxiliary Melvins members, as they’re sure to do tonight after their own set.